Please stock Marmite Cereal bars.

My nearest Waitrose is in Marlborough and I can no longer justify the 26 mile round trip just to stock up on Marmitey goodness.

Yours Sincerley,

Nige.

or…

Dear Waitrose,

Please open a branch of your store in Wootton Bassett…

In Costco MK I managed to pick up a few bargains for myself. Aside from a rather nice jacket and a really warm full-length coat, I saved a fair amount of money on a bulk-buy of red wine, a year’s supply of red onion chutney (eaten within a month) and a 2.5kg tin of corned beef (a Christmas present for my brother. He still hates me.). But the real saving came when I purchased one-hundred and forty-four Persil Bio Gel washing tablets for £16! At two tablets per wash, that’s seventy-two washes, which is a year’s worth for a singleton like me!

But there is a problem…

Since I started using the Persil washing tablets my clothes have become uncomfortably itchy. I’ve tried adding fabric softener and tried using only one tablet per wash, but it has made no difference – my clothes are itching me like crazy! Of course I could change my brand of washing tablet, unfortunately that would still leave me with about fifty washes-worth of these bloody Persil Bio scratch-tablets to get rid of. I’ve since reverted back to my usual cheap-o-Asda branded washing capsule things, saving the Persil itchy-tablets for washing any non-clothing items.

I’ve learned the lesson that some bargains are not as good as they seem.

Yes, of course I do! It’s a new gadget, who doesn’t want to have new gadgets?

Will I buy an iPad?

No.

Well, maybe…

Unless you’ve been living under a self-imposed media embargo you’ve more than likely been made aware of the existence of Apple’s latest gizmo, the iPad. Essentially a larger version of it’s existing iPhone, the iPad will supposedly revolutionise the way we use computers, harmonise the interface between man and machine blah blah blah…

This is the iPad. It’s an iPhone for giants:

"Jesus" Jobs and an iPad

The pro-iPad camp, perfectly represented by Stephen Fry’s unashamed gushings on his web site, claim the iPad to be yet more evidence of the second coming of Christ. It’s a certainty that Apple fans will be queueing outside of their local Apple dealer on the morning of the iPads release, ready to cash-in their latest trustafarian cheque to procure themselves God’s latest… sorry, Apple’s latest creation, regardless of whether it is actually any good…

Those who are firmly anti-Apple claim that the iPad’s lack of multi-tasking, lack of built-in camera, expansion capabilities, SD-card slot, closed architecture, low memory and inevitable high-pricing will doom it to a future shared by it’s forbearer, the Newton.

An iPad would sit nicely on my coffee table. Its memory would be stuffed full of geeky PDF documents (instructions for my hi-fi, video game manuals etc..) and the occasional eBook (one must never be without a copy of The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). I would use it as a TV guide (going to a TV listings web site is far quicker than using Sky’s E.P.G.) or as a way of quickly firing off a few emails without having to use the PC upstairs in the office – nothing that a netbook or smartphone cannot do, but it would be so much nicer doing it on something with the form-factor of the iPad.

The iPad will be released at the end of March. There is no doubt that it will be overpriced.

Look! It turned this:

Untoasted toast

Into this:

Toast

Job done!

It seemed that everyone and anyone had a Tefal Avanti Toaster.

I no longer have a Tefal Avanti toaster.

My toaster died on Friday morning. The plungery-lever mechanism thingy had failed, meaning that I had to manually hold the lever down whilst the bread was toasting. I felt saddened, it was the end of an era, my beloved toaster would have to be replaced. But with what? With another Tefal Avanti toaster of course!

The original Avnti toaster is no longer available. Luckily, the boffins at Tefal had created the Tefal Avanti 2 (The Return of The Toaster)*, a sleeker, shinier version of their already legendary toaster. Armed with my debit card and dreams of toasty goodness, I raced out to the Swindon branch of Comet only to find that they didn’t sell any Tefal Avanti 2 toasters. In fact they didn’t sell any Tefal toasters, as neither did Currys, Argos, or Robert Dyas. Dejected, discouraged and de-toastered, I returned home to check on-line to see if anyone could sell me a Tefal Avanti 2 toaster.

No one can. It’s been discontinued. Tefal no longer make toasters (apart from this abomination).

It’s been four days since I’ve had any toast. I need a toaster, NOW!

Today, during my lunch-break, I braved the howling winds and torrential rains to return to Currys and purchase myself a new toaster. After much deliberation of prices, inspection of crumb trays and guestimation of the size of a toaster’s bread slot (hint: when buying a toaster, always take a slice of bread with you – some toasters are bigger than others) I came away with a Krups FEM2 Toastexpert high-speed toaster. It wasn’t the cheapest toaster in the store, it wasn’t the most expensive, it wasn’t the biggest or the most special-featured (it can warm croissants though) but it is the nearest they had to my beloved Avanti.

I’ve no time to make any toast today so I cannot tell you how well the Krups FEM2 performs. Come back after breakfast time tomorrow to find out if the FEM2 is the new successor to the toast-throne.

*it is not called the Tefal Avanti 2: The Return of The Toaster

That’s right, you read correctly, a Star Trek convention.

I discovered that I had poor vision when we were sat in a hot, sweaty conference room with a few hundred fellow Trekkies at the Leicester Holiday Inn. We were sat listening to various luminaries giving entertaining talks about their time in the Star Trek universe. The charming George ‘Mr. Sulu’ Takei was present, as was the rather witty Max Grodénchik (Deep Space Nine’s half-wit Ferengi ‘Rom’) who had managed to win the audience’s adulation with a comedic re-enactment of Ferengi mating rituals.

At least that’s what I think happened, I couldn’t really make out what he was doing because I had difficulty seeing any great distance in front of me; the people sat in the rows of seats behind me had no problem interpreting Grodénchik’s spasmodic movements but I was clueless, seeing only what I could interpret as a short blurry human-shaped mass strutting across the stage making painful squealing noises. Not wishing to miss any other opportunities to witness minor celebrities make complete fools of themselves, I ensured that we sat near the front for the rest of the convention.

George Takei is very short in real life.

A week or so after the convention, an eye examination revealed that I was indeed short-sighted. I was forced to purchase a rather expensive pair of plain-looking spectacles and endure the sudden, yet predictable jibes from my friends and colleagues.

“Hey, four-eyes!”

“You speccy twat!”

Oh how we laughed!

Over a decade later my eyesight has not improved and the price of glasses has sky-rocketed. Those wrap-round Oakley reactive glasses may have looked the part, but with the frames costing £150 and the special lenses coming in at twice that amount some serious money had to be spent before 20-20 vision could be achieved. As I write this, I am having lunch in my favourite Swindon café (how bohemian) waiting for my new overpriced prescription spectacles to be made by the lovely people at Vision Express. As my prescription now features a ‘0.50 prism’ on each eye, I need special lenses that are going to cost just shy of £200!

I think this’ll be the last time I’ll be able to eat at a café for a long while.

Or will it? Last year a colleague of mine introduced me to the concept of ordering glasses online. He’d purchased some specs from Glasses Direct for the princely some of £30. Sure, they weren’t a high-fashion pair with tinted lenses and infra-red night-vision, but they were very nice for the price. As someone who regularly breaks his glasses, either through the rough and tumble one receives working as a heating engineer or through the pain of slamming one’s face onto a quaint, cobbled Dublin street, £30 for a pair of throwaway glasses is a steal! So from now on I’m going to buy my extra specs online.

Oh, and as I now have a prism on each eye, does that mean you can shine a torch in my face an recreate the album cover to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of The Moon?

]]> http://www.worldofme.co.uk/2010/02/curse-my-eyes/feed/ 1 http://www.worldofme.co.uk/2009/12/january-2010/ http://www.worldofme.co.uk/2009/12/january-2010/#comments Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:26:30 +0000 nige http://www.worldofme.co.uk/?p=947 The World of Me will relaunch in January 2010. Don’t go away…

Click to enlarge

It’s managed to create this masterpiece in the space between my neighbour’s porch and the tree in my garden, a distance covering a good metre and a half. I’ve already knocked the web down once (accidentally I must add) only to find it rebuilt the very next morning. I’m going to admit defeat to Mr. Spider and let his wonderful web stay where it is.

Nature is ace isn’t it?

The Noodles of the Gods

Before I update the World of Me with a huge report from this year’s RAFTA Project, I would just like to add that Shin Cup Noodles are possibly one of the best noodle-in-a-cup-based foodstuffs in the world. Ever.

Another year, another RAFTA project. Bums on seats people, that’s what we need…

On its first visit to Lincoln drill Hall, The Royal Air Force Theatrical Association proudly presents this classic, light-hearted and absolutely delightful French farce set in turn-of-the-century Paris.

Hotel Paradiso is a sleazy Parisian hotel chosen by Monsieur Boniface for an illicit night with Madame Cot, the wife of his best friend who happens to be investigating ghosts in the same hotel on the same night. And that’s not all – there is a nephew interested in philosophical passion, a country cousin who stammers when it rains and his four daughters. It all results in frenzied excitement for all involved and an evening of hilarious entertainment for the audience.

This time next week the cast of Hotel Paradiso will have finished their first performance at the Drill Hall in Lincoln. After a whole year of rehearsing, set-building, costume-making and heavy-drinking it is pretty much guaranteed that it will be a raging success! But don’t just take my word for it, why not come and see the show for yourself?

Tickets can be bought online from the Lincoln Drill Hall website. They are a reasonably priced £8.50 each.

Oh, did I mention that I’m actually in the show? What more reason do you need to buy a ticket?